The total volume of wagering on horse racing is important because it affects both racetrack and state revenues. This paper uses both daily data and data from individual races to explore the influence of a particular government subsidy, the sire stakes, on the racing industry. Previous work using...

Slides for a luncheon presentation given by Ramon P. DeGennaro at the Financial Markets Regulation Conference, Institute for Humane Studies & Mercatus Center at George Mason University, San Francisco, CA, January 5-6, 2016

Angel investors go by many definitions. By all definitions, though, angel investors collectively invest at least billions of dollars in thousands of fledgling companies and entrepreneurial projects annually. This paper describes angel investors and their investments, with special attention to...

Start-ups and early-stage firms employ many people, innovate, and often grow rapidly. In the current recession, however, the increase in entrepreneurial activity does not necessarily mean good news about the state of the economy

The market for small-firm funds is constantly in flux. Imbalances in both the supply and the demand for capital can trace either to the flow of funds or to the flow of available deals. The legal environment can and does change, and can sometimes drive temporary supply and demand imbalances....

We use a discrete choice recursive model to classify 629 companies with dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) in 1999 and 514 companies without them. Our model classifies 72.0% of companies correctly. We interpret misclassified companies as being likely to switch their plan status. For example, if...

Questions about the future of the Social Security system continue to surface. As a result, interest in employer-sponsored retirement plans and other retirement investment options increases. But the restrictions and rules associated with various defined benefit plans such as 401(k), 403 (b), and...

The authors introduce a novel statistical modeling technique to cluster analysis and apply it to financial data. Their two main goals are to handle missing data and to find homogeneous groups within the data. Their approach is flexible and handles large and complex data structures with missing...

This paper estimates the impact of market activity and news on the volatility of returns in the exchange market for Japanese Yen and US dollars. We examine the effects of news on volatility before, during and after news arrival, using three categories of news. Market activity is proxied by quote...

Previous research has concluded that prespecified asset allocations used by many Section 529 college savings plans are suboptimal. We extend this research to show that though it may be true, it is true for reasons other than those asserted in previous research. In addition, it tends to deflect...